CRABS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21714, 22 February 1936, Page 17

CRABS

(mcimi vmnmr *o» wn »asa.) [By'WJEJ«.] I.was once sailing up the Black- , water River in Essex, single-handed, i on the way to my mooring at Heybfidge, when a thunder squall came up and I had to lower my mainsail, i The channel is narrow there, and before I could get the yacht .under control again she was on the mud. I tried to kedge her off, but she had gone on too hard: I had to put up, with the position, and hope that no I one would come past to jeer at me. I laid my kedge out in the middle !of the channel, to float her off at night when the tide rose, and j opened a tin of beef for my dinner. | The tide had fallen considerably by this time, and the mud was uncovered all round the boat. I threw the tin over the side, and watched the crabs clean it out. Crabs are not beautiful: no one keeps them for pets. I reflected, with something.like a shudder, that if* I had been lying there instead of the beef tin, they would have cleaned me up with still greater enthusiasm. I watched a little longer. These crabs seemed particularly unpleasant; their expression was even more cynically malicious than is usual with their species. I made up my mind that they at least should never have the stripping of my bones. I seized a boathook, and mashed them up. I was a little ashamed of myself. One should not destroy life merely for a whim; and although they would doubtless.have done so, given the chance, they had as yet made no attempt to eat me. I was not more guilty than the hero ,of a pheasant battu; very much less so than those unspeakable persons who go out shooting seagulls. I might even claim some, merit, since presumably crabs and fish compete with each other, and we are entitled to destroy what eats our own food. But these considerations did not quite appease my conscience. I was the aggressor, unprovoked: and all because I did not like their faces. I should have remembered that many a kind heart beats behind an ugly face; and anyway who was I to judge? When I had come to an end of these reflections, I looked over the side again. "New armies of crabs were feasting .on the corpses of. my victims; they lay on top of them two or three deep. My first distaste revived more strongly than beforeMy repentance was forgotten; .I, leant over the side, ani mashed, and mashed.

I looked up. Fresh battalions were approaching. in, close, form: ation over the mud flats: the stronger the savour of their maimed comrades, the more eagerly did they advance upon the feast. :I could .not make an end without annihilating the crab population of the river, and even in my frenzy I \#ould not go as far as that. So all that evening I lay surrounded by tlie clicking of innumerable jaws, and the grim feast was not finished until the tide had covered feasters and feasted on alike. I am writing this on Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. Once' more I am sitting in a boat with mud all round her. I have thrown a scrap of beef over the side to attract the crabs (with the friendliest motives, I assure you) but they are paying very little attention to it. Can it be —one hardly dares to suggest it—can it be that New Zealad crabs are less enterprising than English ones? The blood of every true New Zealander will boil at the idea. But it may be that their food comes to them more plentifully; we often hear of the great natural resources of this country. Or perhaps, being New Zealanders, they prefer mutton. They are amusing little fellows, all the same. As I walked out to the boat, two or three of them, perhaps an inch across the shell, threatened me with pincers heid wide open. Poor dears! They httle knew what odds they were challenging. I brushed them over with my toe, a friendly warning to be more wise in future: they dashed frantically for the nearest hole, and vanished. Another, playing happily in a tiny puddle, has found a baby flounder half an inch long. The flounder decided that it was time to move: one terrific flap of his tail, and he landed three inches away. His fins worked for an instant,, and he disappeared; and now the crab is rflshing round looking for him, on tiptoe with excitement. He is just like a kitten chasing its tail; but you feel no wish to pick him up and stroke him.

There is another one just beneath me. I drop a piece of wood close beside him. He digs himself in at once; in the crab world, the spade is far mightier than the sword. In' a few seconds, the rest of him still hidden, two tiny beady eyes appear above the mud, and he examines King Log with caution. He comes out and hurries off: he does not believe in taking chances. It would often be convenient to have one's eyes on stalks, especially for police-, men or schoolmasters; but it is hardly an aid to beauty. We were bathing the other day when we saw a crab swimming. He was dark green -in colour, with curious markings on his back, and he was swimming with ( effortless dignity at the top of about four feet of water. We had never before seen a crab swim like this, and we watched entranced. Was he a crab of high caste, initiated in mysteries denied to his fellows? Was he a crab Columbus, exploring a world known to no crabs before? Or was he Aierely an eccentric, and is it the other crabs who are wise when they ignore an upper world inferior to their own? Whatever he was, .he swam off unconcerned and passed , beyond our horizon.

We found another unconventional crab. He had- climbed up the iron ladder on the inner jetty, and was sunning himself with his back out of the water. He was a patriarch among the crabs, a fellow of enormous girth; perhaps he had climbed there to escape the cares of familylife. It was his undoing. 'We had ! eaten crabs in England ,that were' hardly bigger, and crab meat is good. We surveyed' him speculatively: it was worth trying. We caught him with some difficulty, took him home, and boiled him. He was toothsome, but very tough.. . Then there are the dark blue crabs, with large claws, which live among the rocks. As you walk along at low tide, a crackling sound accompanies you: it is the. thousands of crabs under every boulder, squeezing in close together to escape being seen. 'Turn a rock/over, and in' a few* seconds they have "found fresh'hiding places: yet you would swear that the foreshore could not conceal another one, so packed they are. , • .'" t '.There are Hundreds,of people who can jteU you all about big game fishing, though they have never, seen* a sword fish; they have^segn.thm^st 1 , arids of crabs/ but they seehv; neves, to 1 have noticed one.' It is odd thai*

perietices own.' Crabs aVe~' arti^stpl|^MM;ll if: you are certainly jcoroeto your-funeral, W <^l